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 d.1731. Ward, Merry Observations, June. Those that happen to have the wrong sow by the ear will be very apt to curse the shortness of the Vacation.

1771. Smollett, Clinker [Saintsbury (1900), i. 81]. You know, my dear friend, how natural it is for us Irishmen to blunder, and to take the wrong sow by the ear.

1834. Marryatt, Peter Simple, xii. The man was very well, but having been brought up in a collier, he could not be expected to be very refined; in fact 'it was impossible to make a silk-purse out of a sow's ear.'

Sow's-baby, subs. phr. (old).—Sixpence: see Rhino and cf. Hog = 1/-.

Sow-belly, subs. phr. (military and naval).—Salt-pork.

Sow-drunk, adj. (common).—Beastly drunk: see drunk as David's-sow.

1857. Tennyson, Northern Cobbler. Soa sow-droonk that tha doesn not touch thy 'at to the Squire.

Sozzle (Sossle, Soss, or Sozz), subs. (colloquial).—Generic for lumpishness. Thus (1) = a lout: also soss-belly; (2) a heavy fall; a flop down; (3) a muddle; a mess. As verb. =(1) to flop; (2) to toss at random; and (3) to slush about. As adj. (or soss-bellied) = ponderously fat; soss-brangle = (1) a slattern, and (2) a big horse-godmotherly whore; sossly (or sozzly)=wet, sloppy: sossled = drunk.

1549. Bale, Dict. of Bonner's Articles, 29. Thou sos-bely swil-bol.

1557. Tusser, Husbandrie Ap., 48, 20. Her milke-pan and creame-pot so slabbered and sost.

1566. Still, Gammer Gurton's Needle, v. 4. [Dodsley, Old Plays (Hazlitt), iii. 183]. To dig and delve, in water, mire, and clay, Sossing and possing in the dirt.

1611. Cotgrave, Dict. s.v. A great, unweldie, long, mishapen, ill-favoured, or ill-fashioned man or woman; a luske, a slouche; a sosse.

1710-11. Swift, Letter to Stella, 10 Mar. I went to-day into the city, but in a coach, and sossed up my leg on the seat. Ibid. Sossing in an easy chair.

1767. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, iii. xxiv. She fell backward soss against the bridge.

1870. Judd, Margaret, 8. She sat down and sozzled her feet in the foam.

1873. Whitney, Other Girls, xiii. Folks grow helplesser all the time, and the help grows sozzlier. Ibid., Leslie Goldthwaite, xii. The woman had always hated anything like what she called a sozzle always screwed-up and sharp-set to hard work.

1897. Marshall, Pomes, 75. She was thick in the clear, Fairly sosselled on beer.

Spade, subs. (old).—A eunuch: also spado (q.v.). Hence as verb. = to unsex.

1612. Chapman, Widow's Tears, v. 5. I'll have all young widows spaded for marrying again.

To call a spade a spade, verb. phr. (old).—To speak plainly; to eschew paraphrasis and ambiguity.

c.1588. Mar-Prelate's Epitome, 2. I am plaine, I must needs call a spade a spade, a pope a pope.

1621. Burton, Anat. Melan., Pref. I call a spade a spade; I respect matter, not words.

1630. Taylor, Works. And call a spade a spade, a sicophant A flatt'ring knave. Ibid., ii. 92. I think it good, plaine English, without fraud, To call a spade a spade, a bawd a bawd.

1706. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus. Hush, says my friend, mind what you say We must not call a spade a spade.

1725. Bailey, Erasmus, 'Philetymus and Pseudochius.' But this art is what we dullards call theft, who call a fig a fig, and a spade a spade.

1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 147. Don Gonzales could not stomach those beauties who call a spade a spade; the rites of Venus must be consummated in the temple of Vesta.